Chapter 34
By the time I reach Millbrook, snow is falling again.
It drifts lazily through the beam of my headlights as I turn onto my street, gathering along the curbs and softening the familiar row of tired, dilapidated houses.
Christmas lights blink from half-broken porch railings, while others hang tangled in shrubs with the reckless enthusiasm of people who surrendered to holiday spirit halfway through installation.
My mother’s house sits near the end of the block. The porch light is on. A crooked strand of colored bulbs frames the front window, exactly as it has every December for as long as I can remember. Half the red bulbs are dead. The plastic wreath on the front door hangs slightly sideways.
The place has never looked more beautiful to me.
I pull into the driveway and shut off the engine. My suitcase lies on the passenger seat, packed in an act of optimism I had not allowed myself to name.
I’ve done it.
I made it home for Christmas.
Still uncertain. Still bruised. Still carrying questions. But not alone anymore.
The front door opens before I reach the porch. Mom stands there in an old sweater and slippers, one hand gripping the edge of the door as though she needs it to remain upright. Her hair is loosely tied back, and her eyes are already wet with tears.
“I didn’t know if you’d make it back in time,” she says. “I’m so glad you’re here, baby. I missed you.”
I run straight into her arms. Mom has never been especially affectionate, not because she doesn’t feel things deeply but because deep feelings tend to frighten her into silence. Now she holds me with both arms, tight enough that the welts along my wrists protest, but I don’t care.
“I missed you too,” I say, leaning against her shoulder.
We stand there beneath the crooked Christmas lights while snow gathers in my hair. Neither of us apologizes for the past. We don’t try to explain it or repair years of hurt in a single conversation. We simply hold on.
Then a voice comes from inside the house.
Not loud.
Not dramatic.
Just familiar.
“Are you two coming inside or what? Dinner’s almost ready, and I didn’t slave over it for hours for you to eat it cold.”
Every part of me stops.
Mom pulls back, smiling, but I barely notice. I stare past her, past the open door, into the foyer, unable to breathe, unable to think, unable to trust my own ears.
Footsteps cross the worn wooden floor, and a man comes into view.
He is thinner than I remember. His hair is longer, and there are shadows I’ve never seen beneath his bright green eyes—eyes the same shade as mine.
For one heartbeat, neither of us moves. Then my brother smiles, exactly the way I remember.
“Hey, Watson,” he says. “Seems like you solved another mystery.”
The sob tears out of me and then I’m moving, shoving past Mom and nearly slipping on the rug as I throw myself at him.
Josh catches me, his arms closing around me, real and solid and warm.
I clutch the back of his shirt with both hands, crying so hard I can’t breathe.
I laugh into his shoulder, then cry harder, holding on even tighter because some part of me remains convinced he’ll disappear again the moment I loosen my grip.
“You’re here. I can’t believe it,” I manage. “You’re really here.”
“I am.”
I hit his shoulder once, weakly, because grief and relief have apparently combined into violence.
“You asshole! Never leave us like that again!”
He laughs, even as his voice breaks. “Yeah, I probably deserved that.”
I pull back just far enough to see his face, to confirm for myself one more time that Josh is truly right there in front of me, and then grab him into another hug.
Behind me, Mom is still crying too. The three of us stand together in the narrow hallway, broken in ways that may never completely heal but also whole in a way I had stopped believing was possible.
For the first time in over a year, I can stop searching.
Josh is finally home.